The Cost Of A Meal Across America Slideshow
1. Miami — $22.66
Miami ranked as the most expensive city in which to cook a meal at home, coming in at $22.66 from online retailer Grocery Taxi (grocerytaxi.com). It would take some bargain hunting to find better deals in this tropical town; when searching through the weekly coupons from Publix supermarket we uncovered a whole chicken from $1.29 per pound as compared to Grocery Taxi's $1.94 per pound, but a pound of green beans at Publix was only $0.10 cheaper than the Grocery Taxi price ($1.59 versus the Publix sale price of $1.49).
2. San Francisco — $21.98
A home-cooked meal in San Francisco rang in at $21.98 from Safeway supermarket. Though the cost of chicken was startlingly cheap compared to the rest of the country ($0.89 per pound from Foster Farms), vegetables were a lot pricier, despite the region's reputation for bountiful produce year-round. A pound of fresh green beans was $2.99; Yukon Gold potatoes were $0.99 per pound.
3. Minneapolis — $21.83
The cost of a meal in Minneapolis was very similar to the cost in San Francisco, at $21.83 from grocery retailer Lunds & Byerly's. Their new online shopping service for Twin Cities residents offers the same prices as seen in stores. Overall, the prices of chicken ($1.76 per pound), milk ($1.99 for a half-gallon), and butter ($3.69 per pound) were average compared to the other cities, while green beans ($2.49 per pound) and potatoes ($2.00 per pound) were on the higher end.
4. Chicago — $19.32
We used Internet grocer Peapod, affiliated with grocers Stop & Shop and Giant Food, to calculate the cost of a meal in Chicago, which came in at $20.91. Though the Windy City is the third largest in the country, the cost of groceries was surprisingly affordable, though it did have the most expensive garlic in our study at $0.89 per bulb.
5. New York City — $16.44
The cost of this meal in New York City was surprisingly affordable when purchased from Internet grocer FreshDirect, proving it is possible to live cheaply in the City That Never Sleeps. However, prices differ drastically throughout the city, and the same meal purchased at Manhattan supermarket Food Emporium was the most expensive on this list ($26.89).
6. Houston — $15.70
Though everything is supposedly bigger in Texas, the prices aren't. The cheapest home-cooked meal across America was in Houston, calculated from Kroger supermarket at $15.70.